


Not Being Dead, and Other Such Things

by ryssabeth



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Blowjobs, Hair Kink, M/M, No Tentacles, canon!verse, no eldritch horrors, probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-04
Updated: 2013-08-04
Packaged: 2017-12-22 10:48:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/912308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryssabeth/pseuds/ryssabeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You almost died," he'll say, out of nowhere, as if he just remembered. And all Carlos can do is apologise for that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Being Dead, and Other Such Things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [meski](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meski/gifts).



> okay so I'm not even in this fandom, not really, but from what I understand, Cecil has a thing for Carlos' hair and like there's no hair kink stuff just lots of tentacles where was my hair kink and then I wrote some, bye.

“You almost died,” Cecil will say, sometimes, very suddenly. There will be no segue, no mention of the _Apache Tracker_ (which, despite the saving and the not being deadness, he cannot help but think of with italics, if only because he can picture Cecil’s scathing voice saying it just like that), no mention of anything at all and still—“I thought you were dead.”

“I’m sorry,” Carlos will say to that. He’s used to things without segues—surprise glow clouds and lights above roast-beef food chains and the mentions of angels (which, the Council always, _always_ stresses, _do not exist_ , but if they did, ignore them, please). He _is_ very sorry, sorry enough to look at him and feel ashamed because if there is anything in Night Vale that needs him, it is Cecil.

That, of course, is a fact that took a rather long time to get used to. The first time he’d heard himself mentioned on the radio he was—and he laughs, a little, at this—he was embarrassed and angry and disturbed in equal measure. But, as with most things in this little desert town that hates its neighbor with a passion that rivals the radiation that comes from the canyon, it grew on him. It grew on him because he had seen Cecil smile, once (and it was _perfect_ and he laughs again), and from then on pictured such a grin on his face whenever his voice did that _thing_ and he said _Car-los_.

This is what love feels like, he is certain, after many dates and pulse checks and it is _this_ that brings them here—to this moment, because Carlos still doesn’t quite know what’s kept him in Night Vale. (But, as with anything, he has hypotheses.)

Hypotheses do not matter, not at this moment—this moment where Cecil’s face is in his hands, where his tongue is in his mouth, where they’re slotted together almost so perfectly that it defies all reason.

But that is how this town works.

When they break, for breath, for whatever breathing is or was used for (which is no longer important, not when they were kissing like _that_ ), Cecil _laughs_ , and it isn’t low and decadent, but laced with an undercurrent of joy, bringing it into the upper register, Carlos _thinks_ , because he doesn’t yet know, of Cecil’s vocal range. Carlos himself can’t bring himself to laugh, but he does pull insistently at Cecil’s hands—and the laughter stops.

“Come back to mine,” Carlos says, not entirely self-conscious, being in the middle of the street, though he should be. But there are more pressing things in Night Vale, most days, such as eighteen-foot tall, five headed dragon. This is so insignificant to everyone but them and that—that is something amazing.

They stumble down the street—stumble, of course, because there are moments where they cannot help but stop and kiss and laugh and get nowhere for a moment or three.

The moment they shut the door behind him—and it locks, because it automatically locks, because it’s always been that way (Calros will figure out why, not today, not during this, some other time, yes)—Cecil’s fingers are in his hair and he is saying _perfect_. He is saying _perfect_ and his nails are scraping gently against scalp and suddenly, but maybe not so suddenly, the world is warm and humid and his hands are on Cecil’s hips.

His fingers are in Cecil’s beltloops and Cecil’s fingers fall from his hair and they go up the stairs—they go up the stairs and— _and—_

The bedroom door shuts and doesn’t lock. (A blessing Carlos catalogued upon his arrival, a blessing that he doesn’t consider now, at all, even at the back of his mind.) And then Carlos knees buckle and so he sits on the edge of the bed. Cecil, long-limbed and lanky, mostly angles and sharp edges, folds knees on either side of his hips, sitting as best he can on Carlos’ lap.

But they do not kiss again—not yet. Instead Cecil merely sits and his lips are wet and his pupils are blown and (and this makes Carlos laugh, if only because he might be being ridiculous) he is, for the moment, rather glad that Cecil is normal, as far as appearances go. There is nothing wiggling beneath his paisley decorated skinny jeans and there is no third eye blooming on his forehead and there are no branches beneath his garishly coloured sweater. There is only Cecil and he is beautiful, for all that he is a part of this different and sometimes-terrible town.

“My Carlos,” he says and smiles and his cheeks dimple and Carlos smiles back. “This is very forward of you, isn’t it?” And _that_ is when his voice gets low, gets radio deep, like this is a performance—and it very well could be. But Carlos doesn’t ask. (There are some things, even as a scientist, that he doesn’t want to know.)

“Very forward,” Carlos agrees, and that is that, because Cecil’s mouth looks wonderful when he says _perfect_ , again, because that is the world that defines Carlos to him, apparently. ( _Melodrama_ , he tells himself—but still his ribcage feels too tight when he says it and it means a lot anyway.) He brings Cecil’s face down to his, leaning up to compensate, and their mouths open against one another again, and his chest shrinks, and shrinks further and he feels like he will burst.

That would be okay. Something to study. And, at least, Cecil would have been the source of that—definitively.

Thin fingers are back in his hair, almost too-blunt nails massaging the skin beneath it. Shadows touch the corners of his eyes, heat pushing down his throat and spreading to his chest and arms and abdomen and _oh he just pulled_.

“Oh,” he says and hopes it’s not as drawn out as it feels, rattling his bones and his joints and his teeth.

Cecil’s fingers stop and the kissing stops and their foreheads and pressed together instead. And then his fingers move. And _then_ he pulls Carlos’ head back, moving their foreheads apart, exposing his neck, and Cecil’s mouth reveres his jawline, worships the column of his throat—and the stinging tug on his scalp doesn’t quite stop, not of Carlos pulls gently against it.

And he thinks that he might die.

He thinks that he might die if his mouth smears against his collarbone, he is almost sure he will die if Cecil stops pulling on his hair, he _knows_ he will die if he doesn’t do _something_. And so he pushes gently at Cecil, tries not to focus too much on his mussed hair, dark and not curly, and combed, before, but not now. The other man stands, the line of his length pushing against the zipper of his terrible, terrible pants. “Sit,” Carlos says, gesturing to the bed, moving to stand, his knees threatening to break apart when he does. Cecil sits and doesn’t complain and doesn’t really talk either—and that is something wonderful, he considers, because he’s not sure he could keep his head if he were.

At some point, perhaps when they entered the apartment, Cecil had shed his loafers, _made from the skin of a bipedal crocodile, a maneater, nothing protected_ , he’s said before, but they’re orange—who’s heard of orange bipedal crocodiles in a desert?

(The answer is, of course, Night Vale.)

The _point_ is that Cecil has shed his shoes, at some time after they got in, and that he can now tug down the not-quite-too-tight pants as he kneels to the carpet, off the slim ankles, and then he can—

(oh)

— _pffff_ —

( _cecil_ )

His boxers are very plain and blank and _that’s it_. No odd designs or ridiculous colours—simple and black and that makes it _hilarious_. He doesn’t know why, tugs them down anyway, and breathes out his laughter against Cecil’s cock. It twitches and his breath hitches and when Cecil looks down at him, Carlos wonders if this is what it means to wish to worship.

And then—“You almost _died_ ,” Cecil says, surprised by this, and Carlos has no apologies in him. Instead, he sighs and takes him into his mouth, as far as he can go without gagging. His nose cannot brush Cecil’s abdomen, where his ugly sweater still sits (maybe one day, but not yet), only the hairs, curling around the base of him. There is no repetition—instead, there is a keen, an _almost_ -keen, maybe, and _Jesus_ , his fingers are back in Carlos’ hair.

His shoulders curve inward at the sensation and he’s not—he makes a sound, can’t swallow it, and Cecil just keeps—he says _oh gracious_ Carlos _, oh wow_ , because for all that his descriptions are superfluous there are just some things that defy descriptions even to him. And Carlos is happy to be the source of one of those things. So happy, so—

 _Oh_. A sharp tug, not enough to hurt, enough to _jolt_ , pierces down his spine, and he is straining against his slacks, suddenly and unavoidably. He looks up, trying not to close his eyes against the feeling of nails on his scalp. Cecil is leaning back on both his hands, his head tilted back, throat bared to the ceiling, and his voice is low and glorious but then when Carlos _sucks_ just so, his biceps shiver and he almost _screams_ and that—

Something knots, near his solar plexus, as he runs his tongue against the underside of his shaft. “You—“ Cecil tries to say, cannot say, makes a noise from his chest and tries again, “you are a _gift_. A miracle. A—a rainstorm in a desert or a waterfront when we don— _don’t act-u-ally_ —have one—“ a gasp and Carlos hollows out his cheeks, sucks down, bobs his head, _does his best_ , because both Cecil’s hands are in his hair and pulling at his curls and _he keeps saying things like that_ and—“you are _perfect_ , your teeth and _hair_ and face and jawline and _work_ and voice and _ohhh_ —“

His voice goes from high once more to low, and he goes “ _Car_ -los, I’m— _oh_ —“

Carlos swallows and Cecil _yanks_ —and that one _hurt_ but _ohhh_ —and bitterness fills his mouth and then burns a trail down his throat.

It is only when the tugs turn to soft circles that Carlos pulls his mouth away, meeting Cecil’s eyes, half-open. “Your turn,” he says, and the smooth _sonorousness_ that normally fills a room is hoarse, _gravelly_ , and Carlos hopes that he doesn’t speak too much, because he isn’t sure he’ll be able to last. ( _For shame, Carlos_ , murmurs the Cecil he hears when he’s been working too long, _for shame._ )

Standing is a chore—but he doesn’t have to stand long. Cecil pulls him down and kisses him and _oh yes, Cecil_ —

(The next day, the radio show does not have what he expected—instead, there is only one line, and Cecil’s voice is low and languid and it is “ _Carlos almost died once.”_ A beat. And then. _“I think I almost died once too.”_

Carlos only smiles, hair unbrushed, combed instead by Cecil’s fingers that morning, and continues to work.)  


End file.
